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cheapskate

Posted in on May 30, 2008 at 7:18 pm

—19 9 07
I’ve been sanding stuff for a few weeks now, but the progress is only now starting to show.
-Here’s a pic of that lovely broken screw. It’s stainless steel, so I can’t drill it out. The bottom is glued on now with the sides and bottom sanded and polished. Once the glue cures I can do a test run.

-The drive bay got a dose of polish. There are still a few spots that need touching up, -mostly where the solvent pooled up gluing on the bracing.

-I’m using the homemade polishing wheels to get spots like the screw countersinks. They are nice and soft so they get into cracks fairly easy. You can see this one is now shaped like the countersink holes. The blue thing is a block of polishing wax, and the white sheet is a bit of felt for cleaning off polish residue.

-Time for progress eyecandy. The side is still incomplete. I need to clean up the glue scars and polish the details on the tailfin.

-The inside layer of masking is still on the sideplate, That’s why it’s so dark. The top frame is not attatched in these pics. The red part is just resting on top of everything.

-I love the light shifts in the on switch ball. It looks like it’s getting angry. I made some buttons for the holes in the front. I need to find a way to catch them if the buffer decides to throw them. (Where’s my monster aquarium net?)

—22 9 07
A ton of little stuffs…

-Glued the feet on.

-The belt on my buffer finally got to dangerous to ignore. To change it you need to hammer the bearings out by hitting the shaft with a block of wood. I still managed to ruin one of the bearings, so this is out of commission until I can get a new one. I hope I can get one for a 50 year old rig…

-To find where I needed to bore the holes for the top screws, I drilled in from the back.

-I had to go ultra-mega slow cutting with the full size bit. It is easy to crack the plastic in this situation.

-This is what I have after gluing the tubes in place and filing it down. -and I still don’t know if I can use this part.

-I decided I had enough tubing left to do the top smokestack vent. (With my past experience with computers, it may literally be a smokestack!) Note the pretty thumbprint where I glued myself to the tubing.

-This pic gives you a rough idea where it will sit. I plan to add horizontal fins around the front and sides.

-The bottom side decoration. The plan is to bevel the edges and have a 1/8″ red layer behind it. each layer will be separated by 1/8″ spacers. I’m also thinking of using (stealing)Tribal’s micro-rivet idea. I had planned to use a box of brass brake rivets, but brass tarnishes quickly here. 1/16″ silver dots would look better.

—23 9 07
I’m doing a quick upload ’cause I want some opinions of the design before I chop it out. (not that you can change my mind much, I’m pretty stubborn! -But someone might come up with something that works better.)

-I made a paper template. (Sound the alarm!) to get a rough idea of what I need to cut out of the 1/4″ stuff. You can see I’ve done some heavy sanding on this part. I added the very last scrap of red tubing I had to the back.

-This is the design I worked out for the top side decorations. This is 1/8″ blue and will have a similar red piece behind it. All side add-ons will be spaced 1/8″ from each other. The green marks off where the screw holes and edge of the raised area are.

—27 9 07

-No feedback, so I went ahead and cut the side thingamajiggies out. HA!

-This isn’t a response to the lack of input, it’s how I sanded inside the tube. I taped the sandpaper to my finger.

-I cut out the baseplate for the…whatever this thing is.

-A progress pic…

-Filed out the bevels.

-Hey, Ming the Merciless wants his codpiece back!  I added a fin to the front. All the horizontal fins will be glued to this part. I’m currently making about 2 dozen spacers for them.

-Deadly electric Q-tip, part 2. If you try this yourself, do NOT switch on the dremel with the buffer outside of the tube. The Q-tips can take an eye out when they get off balance and fly off. I imagine this munkey could kill you.

-I put my grinder back together, but the buffing wheel is so out of line I need to make an adapter for it. The problem is that these wheels come with 1/2″ shaft spacers, and this rig is 5/8″. Chopping out the center of the spacers made them weak.

-While using the drill press to make spacers, I screwed up and didn’t leave the masking between 2 layers. They fused together and I couldn’t get them apart until my dad recommended his pill cutter.

—4 10 07
Woa nelly! sanding and making little spacers will really suck the will to mod out of a person!

-I cut out the red set of “fins”.

-I was spouting all kinds of cr*p about mounting the side fins with mini rivets earlier. I realized something that makes that impossible. 2 of the mounting screws for the motherboard are UNDER the decorations. They need to be removable now…

-I’m still ‘cheapskate’, (despite how much I’m putting into this build) so every last bit of scrap is being reborn as 3/8″ spacers. Here’s where the tedium starts…

-I need about 64 of these little b*stards. so far I have made 24.

- This is a repeat performance, but if it bores you to look at it only twice imagine how I feel. I have a file at an angle in the cross-slide vice. I use one axis of the vice to move the file closer, and the other axis to work the file edge up the spacers. If you turn the drill press platform 90 degrees you could use a lathe bit too.

-After the first or second pass. This isn’t perfect. You need be careful not to overheat the plastic.

-I left them in the drill to sand them then left them on the bolt for polishing.

-Polished a whole lotta fin edges.

-Glued some spacers in place. I made a paper template to work out the position, then put a little drop of solvent in the holes. (Another template? I may need to go to the doctor, I’m acting odd!)

-one part done, one part half done. (Crud, more spacers…)

-I managed to find the time to leak test the northbridge waterblock with old faithful.

-I used teflon tape instead of silicone and left off the decorative plate. Using silicone and the plate would mean I would have to put everything together with the retention spring in the slot. My system would be out of commission until the glue cured. I don’t know what I’m going to do when I finally move everything over to this case. Can I live without this rig for a week? I wish I had a second spring now…

-That’s all for now. I leave you with a cool shot of the temp pump with low water.

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